If he claimed his reward at all, he had expected her kiss to be perhaps indifferent, at least neutral.

But the lips she had given him there in the darkness of the room were warm, living, breathing lips.

They had not been snatched away from him too quickly.

Their sweetness, for an instant, had lingered.
Then, in the lamp glow, he was looking into Marette Radisson's face.

He knew that his own was aflame.